Present Sleep Mechanics

What should be done about sleep?

  • Ban Breloom

    Votes: 8 7.7%
  • Ban all Sleep-inducing moves

    Votes: 9 8.7%
  • Ban Spore

    Votes: 5 4.8%
  • The status quo is fine

    Votes: 69 66.3%
  • I think the present Sleep mechanics are a legitimate problem.

    Votes: 25 24.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 5 4.8%

  • Total voters
    104

Super Mario Bro

All we ever look for
Note: I acknowledge this topic has been brought up before in this thread. However, things have changed since then; notably the introduction of powerful new sleep inducers.

Note #2: The above poll is multiple choice. Please do NOT select more than one of the first three options, though, as that would skew the poll.

I was inspired to make this topic in light of all of the complaints I've been hearing (and making) when it comes to Breloom and its Spore. Ever since Technician Breloom was released, countless games have been reversed due to its ability to shut down any Pokemon for free. The problem with Sleep Mechanics right now is that the Sleep counter resets each time Pokemon switches in, meaning that it is incredibly difficult to ever get a sleeping Pokemon to wake up.

I think that there's a solid case to ban all sleep-inducing moves because of their ability to essentially eliminate any Pokemon on the opponent's side of the field. On the other hand, banning Spore by itself may also be an option because moves like Grasswhistle, Hypnosis, and even Sleep Powder can be risky to use due to their sub-par accuracy.

Does there need to be a change or is the status quo fine? Are present sleep mechanics a legitimate problem or not?
 
I feel that Sleep is one of the few broken threats that isn't in the limelight right now only because of the highly controversial issue of weather. I know it isn't everyone's biggest pet peeve but I am convinced that this can't exist in a near-balanced metagame- it takes decent games in the middle and turns them into 50/50s whenever it wants as either player selects their sleep fodder. At the beginning of BW, although partly because of Darkrai, it was quickly established at the very least that Sleep is either annoying or broken and hasn't changed since.

I'm not looking to make an "ideal" metagame, but if I had the choice I would choose to implement the old idea we had of "If your opponent is asleep for any reason other than using Rest, you lose". I'm not seeing any case this doesn't cover, all pokemon have their alternate abilities at this point if there were any that needed them to get around this, and even the ridiculous "Rest + Psycho Shift" example is covered. I would also not mind the full banning of all sleep moves, even just Spore despite the "complex ban" issues that would come up with it.

At the very least I feel it is the time to begin talking about this seriously. In my eyes, we are light years away from a balanced metagame, due to the importance of the game being mostly in team matchups and not choking, I feel it is self-evident that in other lower BW tiers especially there is clearly an emphasis on player interaction and deep pools of good moves to choose from which is gone in OU. I believe it is clear that part of the reason OU is lacking this is because of Breloom- I know that lower tiers have sleep too but I also feel that removing it improves all of them measurably. I'm not sure if Sleep should included in any immediately soon suspect tests, but I think it absolutely needs to be visited before the end of BW.
 

Eo Ut Mortus

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I don't think sleep is broken. There are plenty of Pokemon that can prevent Breloom from getting a Spore off, and there are plenty more scenarios in which a team can afford to sacrifice a Pokemon as sleep fodder. I think it's an exaggeration to claim that sleep turns games into 50/50s.
 
As you're already aware SMB, I completely agree with the "ban Breloom" option. The way I see it a well played Breloom will mostly take out a third of the opposing team. It can Spore anything slower than it, and on the switch can nigh guarantee a KO on the incoming threat with a combination of Focus Punch + Mach Punch, especially if equipped with a Fighting Gem. Sleep is easily one of the most overlooked but certainly broken things that we have in the ou metagame. We could of course just ban spore, but afaik we've never banned a single move before in singles. More thoughts on this later though.
 

Jukain

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Sleep isn't broken; like Eo Ut Mortus, I think it's all over-exaggerated. There's a dynamic of sleep foddering the most useless Pokemon on your team, and it's extremely easy to pull off. Before I continue, let me just say that Breloom is your real problem. Don't hide that behind a veil putting the sleep mechanics into the forefront. Anyway, Breloom has a number of counters in this metagame, including Latias, Celebi, and defensive Landorus-T. It struggles to do get in against faster powerhouses (many of which can take a Mach Punch or are immune to / resist it) due to its mediocre defenses. Yes, Breloom can punch huge holes in the opposing team, but it has to played well to do so. Throwing Breloom on a team and even mispredicting the opponent once often ends up with a dead Breloom. Also:

yee said:
I believe it is clear that part of the reason OU is lacking this is because of Breloom- I know that lower tiers have sleep too but I also feel that removing it improves all of them measurably.
Breloom does not warp OU this much. So what, maybe you run Sleep Talk as a filler move on one of your Pokemon? Maybe you run Latias or Celebi, both of which are already very good in this metagame? Breloom doesn't effect "move variety" or whatever it is you're talking about.
 

jc104

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While I agree that sleep is pretty ridiculous, and I think this game would be better off without it, I don't really want to ban Relic Song.

Is there any way we could do this so Relic Song is ok?
 
First off, I think the vast majority of people think that banning Spore is ludicrous. I don't think anyone would argue that Amoonguss and Parasect are top-level threats, even with the move, and the rule of thumb--at least as I've been told--is that if it's not broken on every user, it shouldn't be banned.

Now, as for Breloom specifically: Eo's focus was on the fact that it's not the biggest deal to have a Pokemon get spored, either because they're immune to it (Sap Sipper, Vital Spirit/Insomnia, already burned/poisoned/paralyzed pokes esp. with Guts and an orb, Sleep Talkers, Magic Bouncers, Lum/Chesto Berry--though the first two aren't very common in OU) or because a team can afford to take a sleep fodder (or has a cleric).

What I'd like to add is that really it's BRELOOM who isn't the threat. If Whimsicott had access to Spore (or even Sleep Powder, or if Grasswhistle had better accuracy), I think we can agree it would be broken, possibly even without Prankster, because it's fast.

At base-70 speed, Breloom is slower than the majority of the metagame. That means in order for Breloom to get off a Spore, it needs to switch in on a slower pokemon (rare) or force a switch, which considering it has weaknesses to Psychic, Flying, Fire, Poison and Ice and its defenses are pretty pitiful, is difficult to pull off (and easy enough for opponents to predict around).

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

[Edit: If you don't have any Pokemon that can take a Priority +2 Technician Mach Punch, that's kinda on you--there are PLENTY of Pokemon out there who resist / are immune to Fighting.]
 

Andy Snype

Mr. Music
Sleep is simply another status condition in the game. Its current implementation is a pain to deal with if you have no idea what you're doing in this game, but those players generally complain about everything RNG-oriented. The site has adopted a stance of keeping-to-the-game-as-closely-as-possible. Though I personally disagree with some cases where it was applied in the past, this is the stance we should take on it, given it doesn't make the game significantly uncompetitive. We visited the issue of sleep when we were determining Darkrai's effect on the game, and our current definition of Sleep Clause is fine. "No more than 1 Pokemon may be asleep from a move that dictates Sleep at a given time" is enough for players with a bit of experience to know how to do stuff. With only one Pokemon on a player's team that can be put to sleep by the opponent, the main problem of Sleep would be the abusive aspect of it, regarding the number of the opponent's tools are (relatively) disabled. This becomes much easier for the player to decide if team preview had not existed as both sides are aware of what can take a sleep and what can't take a sleep. The presumed counterargument to this scenario is, but it can then go to the position of a 50/50 of <insert condition that causes Player A to lose> and <insert condition that causes Player B to lose>, but the problem with that argument is that you can insert conditions other than Sleep into the template, which indicates more so a problem with team matchup than a problem with sleep itself as with team matchup, the player building the team is the one that picks his poison of what he's going to be weak against. Ultimately, sleep is an aspect of the game that not everyone is going to like that we all have to deal with, similar to critical hits and secondary effects.
 
It's definitely not broken. Spore and Breloom are just things that you need to prepare for in the metagame. Honestly, most of the complaining comes from newer players who don't know about either sleep fodder or other external ways to prevent it from being a huge issue (Magic Bounce, Sleep Talk, Natural Cure, Aromatherapy, etc). Snype and Eo basically summarized every point I would make, but yeah, Spore is not an issue if you prepare for it.
 

Trinitrotoluene

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I don't think that Breloom is that much of a problem. It has several counters that are all good Pokemon by themselves (Latias, Breloom, Gengar, and Xatu come to mind), and the concept of sleep fodder (again, Pokemon with Natural Cure, Sleep Talk, or Magic Bounce, or the least useful member of your team) or preparation for sleep (Heal Bell / Aromatherapy) is something that is alien to newer players. A well-played Breloom can take out a third of a team, but again, there's too many counters for it to sweep 6-0 against the majority of teams. I think the status quo is fine, to answer Super Mario Bro's question.
 
I'm very pleased with the discussion so far even if it's aganist my opinion because these are points I find very important.

Sleep isn't broken; like Eo Ut Mortus, I think it's all over-exaggerated. There's a dynamic of sleep foddering the most useless Pokemon on your team, and it's extremely easy to pull off. Before I continue, let me just say that Breloom is your real problem. Don't hide that behind a veil putting the sleep mechanics into the forefront. Anyway, Breloom has a number of counters in this metagame, including Latias, Celebi, and defensive Landorus-T. It struggles to do get in against faster powerhouses (many of which can take a Mach Punch or are immune to / resist it) due to its mediocre defenses. Yes, Breloom can punch huge holes in the opposing team, but it has to played well to do so. Throwing Breloom on a team and even mispredicting the opponent once often ends up with a dead Breloom. Also:


Breloom does not warp OU this much. So what, maybe you run Sleep Talk as a filler move on one of your Pokemon? Maybe you run Latias or Celebi, both of which are already very good in this metagame? Breloom doesn't effect "move variety" or whatever it is you're talking about.
I feel like you didn't make much of an attempt to understand what I was talking about. I obviously understand sleep foddering and I obviously have a better idea of what my problem is than you- I didn't join the many you see in that old thread claiming sleep was broken at the very beginning of BW, I waited until recently to fully grab a side because I was sure. I also have to add that you're listing Latias as a counter, if that switches in and gets slept, it's either Pursuit bait or beaten by a +2 Bullet Seed and Mach Punch unless it gets a one turn sleep or is running max defense. That goes for everyone, I understand that some think it's mostly RNG complaints and not knowing how to play pokemon but I don't need to flaunt myself as an exception when there's knowledgeable players out there who feel the same way.

While I still hold my stance I'm doubtful nearly enough people do for it to matter.
 

Oglemi

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I think the poll results thus far speak for themselves so I'm just going to close this as it's not going to go anywhere.

Sleep is not gamebreaking in any tier aside from maybe OU (and the poll results seem to agree that it's not there too).

If anything the suspect here to discuss is Breloom, which should be brought up after the current suspect discussion on Deo-D has been completed.

Don't use this forum just to migrate arguments and scuffles from the OU subforum.

And we will never be banning a move as far as I'm concerned, as it's evident that access to even Spore does not a broken Pokemon make.
 

Aldaron

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Uh, why is this closed? I have absolutely no issue with this being open for discussion.

Re-opening.

In fact, I encourage anyone with access to this forum to make these kind of threads as long as they take it on themselves to keep it intelligent and relevant.
 
I think the present Sleep mechanics are a legitimate problem.

voted this option. none of these options are appealing. sleep is really fucked atm but im not sure what you could actually do about it. there's too many mons that can do it, too many weird things that would happen from it, and cause a pretty bad rift in the community.

would the game be much better without sleep is a pretty good place to start on this, not if breloom is broken.
 

alexwolf

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Who uses Spore to great effect in OU? Breloom and that's it. How can you deal with Spore? Xatu, Heal Bell, RestTalkers, Lum Berry, Taunt, or sacrificing your least valuable member are all very good solutions. I don't even get why sleep moves are problematic, as their best user in OU is not even close to broken...
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
there's nothing wrong with the status quo, and the public opinion seems to overwhelmingly reflect that opinion. the only two spore users that are legitimately usable are breloom and amoonguss. breloom has a lot of trouble getting a spore off in the first place due to the speedy and offensive nature of the current bw2 metagame, and even when it does put something to sleep, it's not hard to handle, seeing as many popular pokemon including gengar, the lati twins, and dragonite resist its dual stab moves. amoonguss, on the other hand, doesn't have as much trouble getting off a spore, but it's generally pretty clear when it's going to spore so you can switch to the least useful pokemon on your team and cut your losses. in addition to that fact, once amoonguss has put something to sleep, it can't follow up with much in terms of offense, so it's a lot less of a threat once the sleep clause is activated.

honestly i don't know why this thread exists, i guess it's a discussion that needs to be had but the public opinion seems pretty clear on this one. as an experienced bw2 ou battler, i can say that i've never had a problem with sleep mechanics, they're obnoxious compared to adv/dpp but it's nothing gamebreaking for certain. besides, it's what game freak intended, and we've been more or less ok with that for smogon's history, so why are we upset about it now? sleep mechanics might change again in xy for all we know, there's no sense arguing about them because they're part of the game we play and something that's truly beyond our control. banning sleep moves is too extreme because we'd essentially take two entire pokemon out of the picture as far as competitive play goes, which is overkill for such a minor issue in my opinion. i get the point you're trying to make but in my mind it's really not an issue compared to all the problems we're encountering with drizzle, drought, etc. we could be discussion more pertinent matters.
 

kokoloko

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For what it's worth, I've always thought Sleep in general was slightly broken... even before BW, tbh.

Even with its imperfect accuracy, Sleep Powder is essentially a 75% accuracy OHKO move in BW that--unlike actual OHKO moves--doesn't even give up momentum when it connects, and hence can be used to set up shit like QuiverPass Venomoth (just ask any UU player, they'll tell you how ridiculously hard it is to stop that thing).

I don't expect anything to actually come out of this thread, though, and I don't feel particularly strongly about the issue either. Just figured I'd let my opinion be known "just in case".
 

Andy Snype

Mr. Music
An aspect of the term mechanic that seems like it is being ignored is its implementation regarding its availability for Pokemon. Currently about 20 Pokemon out of the 400-500 some odd fully evolved Pokes normally use Sleep Powder or Spore, semi-reliable moves that cause a direct Sleep effect on the opponent ( where "semi-reliable" is arbitrarily defined over 70%, based on bitching of Focus Blast misses (though Stone Edge miss is also complained about, I included Sleep Powder as it's more common than Spore)). Now consider the fact that the momentum that could be gained from a sleeping opponent would actually be useful if most of those Pokemon could do something instead of having to switch. A couple of them can threaten offensively, ex: Venusaur, Loom, Venomoth, Jynx (LK), and Eggy in their respective tiers. Some maintain Sleep Powder for defensive/utility purposes, Amoonguss, Spikes-less Rose(lia/rade), Tang(ela/growth), but overall the number of Pokemon that actually use a 75% or higher Sleep move would be generally in the single digits still. Out of the 649 that exists, its presence is weak for something claimed to be broken.

On the same note, people complain about sleep because that's mostly what they see most of these Pokemon actually doing since it's the most distinguishing factor of using a Grass mon. Grass is generally associated with Poison/Paralysis/Sleep. The former two statuses are easily achieved by using most Pokemon with generally decent stats that have access to Toxic or Thunder Wave; thus there isn't much reason to generally see these statuses on Grass-type mons when there are other Pokemon with arguably better typing and stats to fulfill the roles. Common sense indicates if you're looking for a role and Pokemon A does the job as well as Pokemon B and can perform other roles better, save for one role (sleep) it's better to use Pokemon A as in a game where a lot is up to chance (matchup, RNG), you'll want to be more flexible with what you can do, so you will pick Pokemon A. As a result if B is generally picked, you'd use it for that purpose (sleep).

Hypnosis in itself is another bag as though it's more spread than Sleep Powder and Spore in terms of Pokemon families that learn it, it's got two drawbacks to it: its 60% accuracy and competition with other moves for the four slots a Pokemon can have. The 60% accuracy by itself is unsettling as most players find that a large risk to take for a chance for a move to work. The mons that I've ever seen use Hypnosis this gen that I can attest for are bulky Politoed and bulky Ninetales. Quite frankly, the reason that Hypnosis is used for these two mons is that they don't really have much else to offer. Other than the widespread: Toxic, STAB TM/HM move, Protect, coverage move, and a couple other TM moves that are generally given to a large amount of Pokemon. Their main niche is weather and keeping weather up.

Looking closer at the distribution of Hypnosis and there's a decently-sized proportion of frailer users that generally don't want to risk the rather high risk of a miss at the potential cost of the Pokemon itself. Another important realization is the fact that there are tons of Psychics with Hypnosis unsurprisingly, but not many of them use it often because Hypnosis does not fit as well as other options for the role those Pokemon generally perform. The opportunity cost of using Hypnosis is too high for it to be on most teams all of the time. Some of the bulkier mons can have a chance to use it, but that's like a couple (Bronzong, Milotic).

Sleep is effectively used in approximately 10-20 Pokemon out of 649, at best. Most other Pokemon that have access to a Sleep move either have one that is very inaccurate or perform roles marginally better. The implementation of Sleep is set up so that only a few Pokemon can use it well. A couple of Pokemon have nothing better to set themselves apart from other Pokemon as choices except to put some things to Sleep, just like how some Pokemon can do nothing better except Baton Pass or sweep or take hits. Can sleep be powerful? Sure it can be, but looking at what actually has reliable sleep-inducing moves in its movesets, it's not a problematic implementation.
 
I see two legitimate ways to address this. The first is the status quo, i.e. leave Sleep Clause as the rule we use to regulate sleep. I think that by doing this we should give the concerns about real-life enforceability to rest. The second is to ban all sleep moves, meaning we ban every move whose only main function is to cause sleep (so not Relic Song). I understand that people still kind of like sleep as a status and would ultimately not want to ban sleep moves, but at least it's fully enforceable irl. At this point I don't really care either way. I just think that banning Breloom or just Spore would be silly as hell. Also remember, only two Pokemon broke 20% usage last month. I'm not sure we want to risk wrecking that, especially considering a Pokemon is already on the chopping block right now. I just get the sense that we should be done fiddling with OU at this point.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
I see two legitimate ways to address this. The first is the status quo, i.e. leave Sleep Clause as the rule we use to regulate sleep. I think that by doing this we should give the concerns about real-life enforceability to rest. The second is to ban all sleep moves, meaning we ban every move whose only main function is to cause sleep (so not Relic Song). I understand that people still kind of like sleep as a status and would ultimately not want to ban sleep moves, but at least it's fully enforceable irl. At this point I don't really care either way. I just think that banning Breloom or just Spore would be silly as hell. Also remember, only two Pokemon broke 20% usage last month. I'm not sure we want to risk wrecking that, especially considering a Pokemon is already on the chopping block right now. I just get the sense that we should be done fiddling with OU at this point.
so if we do take the second course of action as you say, and ban all moves "whose only main function is to cause sleep", but we do this because we have determined sleep is broken in bw (which i disagree with), then what do we do with relic song? we can't justify banning it, because it's only a 10% (effectively 20%) sleep chance, plus it prevents anyone from ever using meloetta's alternate form, but if we keep it, then there's still a chance of sleep occurring in ou, and we can't remove the side effect of sleep either, because that's tampering with the original intention of the developers. in my opinion, banning sleep moves just creates an unnecessary quandary that there's no good answer to.
 

TheFourthChaser

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I'm in the same boat as kd. I do think BW sleep is fucking awful and arguably broken but I think this thread is similar to the one made 2 years ago, something strong with a sleep move has risen up and become a dominant force in the metagame. Back then the discussion dropped after Darkrai's ban but this time around, especially with XY in a few months, we should at least try to decide if sleep is detrimental to competitive Pokemon.

In DPP I never had thought sleep was broken and as I played different generations I came to the same conclusion, I'm sure many players have reached the same. The problem lies with BW. If sleep mechanics stay the same in XY I like capefeather's idea of banning all moves that directly cause the status, especially since I have little doubt Spore would get at least a bit more distribution. Sure Relic Song would still be around but to me it's the same as keeping around moves that can cause Freeze (because if there was a move that caused Freeze directly we would totally ban it).
 
Well, there will always be some kind of quandry, as I mentioned by indirectly alluding to the many discussions about Sleep Clause's implementation. Ultimately I don't think it matters that much and banning sleep-but-not-RS is the only alternative that doesn't strike me as kind of silly.
 

Brambane

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I consider being weak to sleep a team matchup issue. Back when Amoongus was NU, I ran Pokemon who could effectively absorb Spore, such as Sawsbuck or Throh. And I never considered the timer-reset particularly broken, possibly because moves like Heal Bell and Aromatherapy exist. It's not like anti-Sleep strategies even don't exist or are stupidly complex to pull off. The way I see it, people are saying "I don't want to run a Pokemon that can switch into Sleep moves, so let's ban them!" If that's NOT how it is, please clarify.
 
The way I see it, people are saying "I don't want to run a Pokemon that can switch into Sleep moves, so let's ban them!" If that's NOT how it is, please clarify.
I'm not gonna bash you for how you see it, but I really don't understand how people ever hold views like this. I understand that in general, when there is only a couple people feeling a certain way about something it probably isn't for a solid reason, but I thought I explained pretty clearly that it consistently puts more guesswork into games, even if you do run the pokemon that switch into sleep moves (or even know about sacking / foddering / how to play the game). I have no expectation that sleep will be taken seriously in the near future but if anything comes out of this thread I'd like to reduce the "these people just don't like facing these things so they want to ban it", because it generally means someone is reacting to what is being said instead of responding.
 

Meru

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The current sleep mechanics would at least be a little bit more tolerable if you knew the Sleep Timer on your pokemon. Sitting there attempting to find out whether or not the Sleep timer could be in your favor is annoying, because if you try to figure it out, you can die in the process, opening yourself up to the sleep clause again. If I at least knew whether to let my sleep fodder rest in peace or not (literally, as a three turn sleep is pretty much a KO), then I feel like I could be at peace more with these sleep mechanics.

Either that or they could make it a set two turn thing. But given that we've been asking for something like that for Outrage for years, I doubt Gamefreak will fix the sleep mechanics that plague this generation.
 

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